Saturday, 30 July 2016

This Flesh is Mine

'To Agamemnon, Honour is nothing more thana bone that he drops in the yardwhen he gets a whiff of somethingwith more flesh
to gorge on.'

'Through most
cultures, through most of history, the arts – music, dance,
painting, theatre – have not been done for the living at all, but
for the dead. Indigenous performances, African performances, Asian
performances are dances for the spirits of the dead- ways to
commemorate, to atone and to heal. Their purpose is to say that love
continues, and that any pain or sorrow around the death needs to be
purged. That the lives of those remaining will only return to a
position of balance when the enduring pain has been expunged.'
Michael Walling

Border Crossings' two plays, This Flesh is Mine
and When Nobody Returns come to London in October 2016.

For the Palestinians home is an absence, so in its absence, with its theft,language and poetry
become all important to the preservation of their country. In The
Cloud in My Hand the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, wrote;

The place was prepared for his birth:His grandfather's hill of sweet basilWith views to the east and the west.God's olive trees rising with the language.

When first visiting Palestine, Michael Walling,
artistic director of Border Crossings, was struck by this importance
of culture in Palestinian life. 'Palestine is probably the most
vibrant space I have ever encountered. Everyone is deeply informed
about history and culture.'In April 2014 Michael worked with actors from the
Ramallah-based Ashtar Theatre on a production of This Flesh is
Mine by Brian Woolland. Using The Iliad as a starting
point the play was set partly in the classical and partly in the
modern world.In Almond Blossoms and Beyond Darwish drew a
parallel between Ramallah and Homeric Troy and Walling has been happy
to follow Darwish since, 'mythology allows you to address the present
without apportioning blame … it permits a purer, more emotional
identification with the experience of prolonged warfare.'

In the upcoming London production This
Flesh is Mine will be joined by Brian Woolland's new play,
When Nobody Returns. After The Illiad there has
to be The Odyssey, after war displacement.The two plays will be performed under Westway
near Ladbroke Grove, London, 20 October – 6 November. The cast will
include Palestinian actors Iman
Aoun and Bayan Shbib.
Music by Dave Carey. Director: Michael Walling

'It is as if the people living here are themselves
determined not to let it become in any real sense a home. For them,
home sits beyond the wall, behind the checkpoint, in the lands from
which they are now excluded, towns which most of them have never even
seen. Many carry the keys to their ancestral dwellings with them
wherever they go, as a reminder of their displacement and their
aspiration to return.' (Michael Walling)

Michael directed my first play, Simple
Writings, and was a major contributor to Spitting Into the
Sky, a play about Dylan Thomas. You can read more about his
influence on my playwrighting in 'Left Field'. Now that my memoir has
been published I have offered to help Border Crossings with the
promotion of these plays and with the upcoming London production.